Chapter 27: Taking Stock of the Gains

After eating, Li Si took out the Dead Jade from his clothes and summoned the Decapitated Ghost and the Womb Ghost.

Two children stood before Li Si, and he immediately felt somewhat speechless. What had he become? A nursery? Not to mention these two little ghosts, Cao Qing’s son would also be staying at his house when the time came. All at once, there would be three children in his home.

Li Si set aside the helplessness in his heart and began taking stock of his gains from the Zhang Residence.

He had killed one low-level ghost creature, the Drowned Ghost, worth 10 soul points.

He had killed one low-level ghost creature, the Dismemberment Ghost, worth 98 soul points.

He had delivered 23 souls and gained 23 soul points.

Adding the 2 soul points from killing the Walking Corpse earlier, he had gained a total of 133 soul points over these past few days.

Previously, he had spent 12 soul points to buy Ghost Creature Strengthening Liquid, as well as 5 points to contract the Womb Ghost. Now, he had 116 soul points remaining.

Looking at the shop in the system now, out of the nine goods, he had bought four, leaving five.

These five were the Blazing Sun Peachwood Heart Sword, the Eight Trigrams Purple Yang Mirror, one year of lifespan, The Black Tortoise Record, and a longsword.

The Blazing Sun Peachwood Heart Sword and the Eight Trigrams Purple Yang Mirror were too expensive. One cost 3000 soul points, and the other cost 1500 soul points.

As for one year of lifespan, he could wait a while and save up enough to buy it for two hundred points. Only, this one year of lifespan was not something cost-effective for him at present.

What he needed now was to improve his ability to kill ghost creatures and protect himself, not lifespan.

Although his current lifespan of one year and two months looked very short, he really might not necessarily live until then.

Li Si’s gaze turned toward the two remaining things he could buy. One was The Black Tortoise Record, worth 85 points and currently on special offer for 2 points, and the other was the longsword, worth 13 points and currently on special offer for 1 point.

Fortunately, both of these items were heavily discounted goods. Together, they only cost three points.

After buying them, he would still have 113 soul points left.

With a stir of his thoughts, the two goods disappeared from the shop.

At the same time, a stream of information appeared in Li Si’s mind. It was precisely the essential formulas and techniques of The Black Tortoise Record.

A pitch-black longsword also silently appeared on the table.

After Li Si received the information from The Black Tortoise Record, he looked toward the longsword on the table. He saw that the sword’s scabbard was entirely black. The surface of the scabbard reflected faintly under the sunlight, and its surface was covered with a fine layer of smooth black scales.

What made this sword astonishing was that it had no crossguard, which was to say, no handguard. The hilt behind it was wrapped in a layer of black cloth, and at the pommel was a ring without any decoration.

Li Si looked at the longsword, and a joyful expression appeared in his eyes. Men always had an inexplicable fondness for weapons, especially this sword, which looked very much in line with the beauty in his heart.

Picking up the longsword, he immediately felt that this sword weighed about 2 kg (~4.4 lb), making it extremely substantial in his hand.

Li Si immediately knew that he currently could not use this sword at all. At present, even raising it with one hand was very difficult.

Holding the longsword, he gently pulled it outward with his right hand. The silver-white blade of the longsword happened to reflect sunlight into Li Si’s eyes, causing him to immediately close them.

At the same time, his neck felt an icy sharpness, making the fine goosebumps on his neck stand up.

Li Si only felt as if a sword had already been placed against his neck, ready to easily cut off his head at any moment.

He quickly inserted the sword back into its scabbard, and only then did that feeling gradually disappear.

Li Si let out a long breath and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. Just now, he truly had a feeling that he might die at any moment.

Only then did he understand the difference between the system’s sword and a sword from a blacksmith shop.

“It doesn’t really suit you to always be called longsword.” Li Si placed the longsword on the table, rubbed his chin, and frowned tightly. “How about you be called Black Sword?”

At this moment, he also looked toward the two ghost creatures standing beside him. The two ghost creatures also stared at him, six eyes facing one another.

Only then did Li Si remember that the Decapitated Ghost and the Womb Ghost still needed names. Previously, he had felt that the ghost creatures of this world did not have much intelligence, so he had not had any intention of naming them.

After all, when he had played games before, he had never changed the names of the pets he captured. But after experiencing the matters at the Zhang Residence, his thoughts had changed, so he prepared to give them names.

“One of you will be called Xiaoduan, and the other Xiaoyu,” Li Si thought for a moment and said with a smile.

A Decapitated Ghost being called Xiaoduan was just right, and the other Womb Ghost would be called Xiaoyu. This was also converted from Zhang Yu, whom he had heard of in the Zhang Residence.

As for their future names, he would let them choose for themselves once their intelligence was complete in the future.

At this moment, the panels of the longsword, the Decapitated Ghost, and the Womb Ghost quietly changed.

Black Sword: The longsword of the ancient swordsman Luoye Qiu, a rare precious sword in the present world. Current holder: Li Si

Decapitated Ghost [Xiaoduan]

Ghost Creature Rank: Low-Level Ghost Creature

Abilities: Ghost Blows Out the Lamp; Intangibility; Long Tongue;

Current Relationship: Contracted.

Current Soul Strength: 30

Womb Ghost [Xiaoyu]

Ghost Creature Rank: Low-Level Ghost Creature

Abilities: Humanity; Intangibility; Spiritual Light;

Current Relationship: Contracted.

Soul Strength: 5

Li Si sensed all this information at once. At the same time, curiosity rose in his heart, and he sensed toward other items. Suddenly, he discovered that the attributes of the Protective Talisman had also changed.

Protective Talisman: A protective talisman written with an unknown red liquid, making ghost creatures below high-level unable to harm the wearer.

It loses effect after 30 days of wearing. Current remaining time: 16 days, 12 hours, 23 minutes, and 29 seconds.

Clearly, this time had shrunk by a lot. Li Si’s expression immediately began to shift between cloudy and clear. With a thought, he knew that this was definitely because he had suffered the Dismemberment Ghost’s attack. The attack had consumed the Protective Talisman’s time.

Originally, he had even been thinking of going out and wandering around recently. In any case, he had the Protective Talisman protecting him, but now that he thought about it, that was definitely impossible.

Afterward, Li Si no longer had any thought of continuing to waste time. He casually put Xiaoduan and Xiaoyu away, found a wooden peg in the cabinet, and hung the longsword in the study.

Then he walked into the courtyard and began impatiently practicing the moves of The Black Tortoise Record. He had never practiced martial arts before, so he was naturally curious about The Black Tortoise Record.

At the same time, The Black Tortoise Record could change Li Si’s sickly body, making it easier for him to survive in this world.

From the information in The Black Tortoise Record, he knew that this was a martial art for nourishing qi and fighting. This martial art was very similar to Tai Chi, which Li Si had seen in his previous life, but there were also differences. Tai Chi emphasized health cultivation, while The Black Tortoise Record emphasized killing.

This martial art was divided into two parts, practice moves and killing moves. It contained a total of forty-nine killing moves and one set of practice moves. Among them, all forty-nine moves were extremely vicious, every move attacking a person’s vital points. They had been created entirely for killing. If these moves were practiced until they became skillful, their killing efficiency could be called terrifying.

But Li Si planned to practice these moves slowly, because he had no intention of becoming an expert killer at all. Practicing enough for self-defence would do. At worst, he also had ghost creatures protecting him, and ordinary people would find it very hard to hurt him.

If he had that much time, he might as well think carefully about how to increase Xiaoduan’s strength.

As for why he would not practice the forty-nine moves to deal with ghost creatures, when he obtained the martial information of The Black Tortoise Record, from the basis of ghost creatures, he already knew that the moves he trained would have no use against ghosts, and might not even have much use against demon creatures.

Because ghost creatures and demon creatures both possessed demonic arts or ghost arts. When ghost creatures and demon creatures fought him, they would not clash head-on, but would use demonic arts and ghost arts to deal with him. Moreover, almost every ghost creature had the Intangibility ability, so there was simply no way to fight them.